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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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PENNSYIVANIA GLUB LECTURES. 



COURSE OF 1889-90. 



AN ADDRESS 



The Life and Services of 
John F. Hartranft. 

BV / 

10 ^ 

n Hon. William N. Ashman. 




PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 



PHILADELPHIA; 

THE PENNSYLVANIA CLUB, 

1423 Walnut Street. 

1890. 



E4C1 
•I 



Copyrighted, 1890, 
Bv WILLIAM N. ASHMAN. 



PRESS OF WM F. FELL & CO., 

1220-24 SANSON! STREET, 

PHILADELPHIA. 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND SERVICES 
OF JOHN F. HARTRANFT.* 



The successful panegyrist is frequently, of neces- 
sity, an artist. In men's characters as in their faces, 
some blemish or deformity often mars the symmetry 
of what would be otherwise a noble outline, and the 
skill of the biographer and the deftness of the painter 
are shown as well by concealing the ugliness of the 
one as by enhancing the beauty of the other. The 
greatest men have been in some part of their being 
the smallest men. Fortunately for me, the task to 
which I come with a grateful heart to-day needs for 
its performance no resources of art. I am to speak 
of a man — so unaffected, so honest, so real in his 
manhood, that the snnplest words will best portray 
his character, and the bare recital of his deeds will 
be his best eulogy. Power did not spoil him; 
wealth did not seduce him; flattery did not weaken 
him ; he tasted whatever of sweet and whatever of 
bitter there was in them all, but he kept to his first 
estate and to the faith of his childhood ; held fast to 
his earliest friendships; and to you, who stood in 
his presence, and forgot with him, the trappings 



*Au address delivered before The Pennsylvania Club, under the 
auspices of the Committee on Political Education, Philadelphia, 
January 30th, 1890. 

3 



with which others would have decked him, he 
showed himself grandly a Man. If modesty allied 
to courage, and tenderness of feeling to firmness of 
will ; if prudence in judgment followed by swiftness 
in action, and a zeal for present interests tempered 
by a wise forecasting of the future, are the sure 
marks of greatness, then he was also great; for all 
of these qualities centred in John F. Hartranft. 

You know tlie story of his life, and yet it has 
seemed to me that it would be interesting to recall 
some of its incidents, and to go with him in memory, 
as he climbed the steps of preferment. He could 
boast worthy lineage. As far back as 1669, the 
name of Melchior Hartranft appeared on the rolls of 
a sect of pietists in Germany, whose simple but 
mystical faith provoked a persecution from which 
his children escaped by migrating to America. 
They settled in Montgomery County in this State, 
in 1734, and successive generations bearing their 
name have maintained to this day a home in that 
section. Here on December 16th, 1830, General 
Hartranft was born. His education was sedulously 
cared for, and in its preliminary stages he had the 
benefit of the tuition of Samuel Aaron, who was 
widely known as a teacher and speaker of intense 
convictions and extraordinary ability. He com- 
pleted his course at Union College, Schenectady, New 
York. His taste for the study of Mathematics led 
him to adopt the profession of engineering, and for 
two years he assisted in running the lines of several 
railroads. Circumstances, however, induced him to re- 
turn to Norristown and prosecute the study of the law. 



On October 4th, 1860, he was admitted to the bar, 
and was soon afterwards elected to the Borough 
Council and the School Board. He had always 
shown a capacity for military affairs, and when the 
rebellion broke out he was Colonel of the First Regi- 
ment of the Montgomery County Militia, an organi- 
zation which numbered six companies. The policy 
of the national administration was not then in ac- 
cord with his party principles; but without being 
disturbed by this consideration he promptly tendered 
the services of his regiment to the Governor, who as 
promptly accepted them. In three days' time the 
command, fully recruited, reported at Harrisburg 
for duty, and it was mustered in on April 20th, 
1861, for the term of three months, by the title of 
the Fourth Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
Soon afterwards it was stationed in front of Alex- 
andria, as part of the force protecting AVashington. 
The disastrous advance on Bull Run was ordered on 
the very day the regimental term of enlistment ex- 
pired ; and in that engagement Colonel Hartranft 
served as a volunteer aid on the staff of General 
Franklin. He displayed such conspicuous ability 
that the division commander used these words of 
commendation in his report : " His services were 
exceedingly valuable to me, and he distinguished 
himself in his attempt to rally the regiments (5th 
and 11th Massachusetts) which had been thrown 
into confusion." General McDowell, in a letter sub- 
sequently written to General Hartranft, said : " I 
always regretted that I did not make an exception 
in your case, in my report of the battle of Bull Run, 
and name you for your good conduct, instead of leav- 



6 

ing it with General Franklin. I regret this the more 
as General Franklin's report was not printed." With- 
out delay he was commissioned Colonel of the 51st 
Pennsylvania Volunteers, a three years' organization, 
whose fame thereafter became his own ; and when that 
regiment received its stand of colors, in November, 
1861, Governor Curtin uttered the prophetic words: 
" I am looking hundreds in the face, now in perfect 
health, who will never return to their homes ; but 
their memories will be enshrined in the hearts of 
the generations of future ages." Three months 
afterwards the men went into their first action. 
Their regiment had been assigned to Reno's brigade, 
and formed part of the force under General Burnside 
in his expedition to Newbern. The passage was 
made by sea in a stormy season, and as soon as a 
landing was made on Roanoke Island, hostilities 
began. A single causeway through a swamp led to 
the enemy's earthworks, but it was soon traversed 
and the entire rebel force with its artillery was cap- 
tured. From this point to Newbern the march was 
a trying one. Soldiers lost their shoes in the tena- 
cious mud and actually fought the battle barefooted. 
But it was a proud day for Colonel Hartranft's regi- 
ment. After the fight had continued for some hours, 
that regiment, which had been held in reserve, was 
brought up to the front and immediately ordered to 
charge. At the word, it dashed across the ravine, 
and carried the works on the other side, and at four 
o'clock the city of Newbern was in the hands of our 
troops. The engagement at Camden, North Caro- 
lina, which followed in April, was the only action 
participated in by the regiment, while Colonel 



Hartranft commanded it, at which he was not 
present. The sickness of two of his children had 
called him Xorth, and he reached his home only 
after both of them had died. 

When autumn set in, the Fifty-first Pennsylvania 
entered upon a campaign which soon turned its men 
into veterans. In the month of September the battle 
of Antietam was fought, but before that action the 
regiment had gone through the experiences of Fred- 
ericksburg, the Second Bull Run, Chantilly and 
South ^lountain. It was a hard school, whose 
lessons were un cheered by a single victory, and the 
death roll of the Division included the name of 
General Reno. In two of these engagements and in 
the retreat towards the Rappahannock, it fell to the 
lot of Colonel Hartranft to cover with his regiment, 
the rear of our columns. 

The battle of Antietam will always be remembered 
as the first historic battle of the rebellion. It is 
fraught with a large personal interest because it 
marked the culminating point in the career of a 
commander upon whom the eyes of the nation were 
turned. I am not competent to praise or to con- 
demn ; but the fact is patent that if the victory of 
that day had been more decisive than it was, a future 
whose possibilities can scarcely be conjectured, might 
have opened before him. Fortune is too often the 
presiding genius of war ; and even Napoleon, when 
he trusted in the star of his destiny, confessed his 
belief in the truth of the aphorism. General Hooker 
began the engagement in the afternoon of September 
16th. and he was followed across the creek during 
the night bv the forces of Generals Sumner and 



8 

Mansfield. At nine o'clock on the morning of the 
17th, the battle had raged for more than four hours 
with no apparent result, and the bulk of our troops 
was still on the hither side of the stream. Spanning 
the ravine and abutting on that part of the field 
where the foe was massed, whom General McClellan 
desired to reach, was a stone bridge from whose ter- 
minus on the right bank, a steep declivity ran down 
to the water's edge. The approach to the structure 
on that side is thus described in the official report 
of the battle : " In this slope the roadway is scarped, 
running both ways from the bridge and passing up 
to the higher land by ascending through ravines, 
above and below, the upper ravine being some six 
hundred yards above the bridge, and the lower about 
half that distance below. On the hillside immedi- 
ately above the bridge was a stone fence running 
parallel to the stream; the turns of the roadway 
were covered by rifle pits and breastworks made of 
rails and stone, all of which defences, as well as the 
woods which covered the slope, were filled with the 
enemy's infantry and sharpshooters. Besides the 
infantry defences, batteries were placed to enfilade 
the bridge and all its approaches."* Two attempts 
had been made to cross, and two regiments of Gen- 
eral Sturgis's division had actually reached the 
bridge, but the loss in passing up the valley and at 
the bridge itself was so great that the men were 
compelled to turn back. At this moment General 
Burnside ordered up the Fifty-first Pennsylvania. 

* General Cox's Official Record; Moore's Rebellion Record, 
Vol. 5, pp. 454-5. 



9 

The command was given in terms and by a mode 
which were meant to be significant. It was ad- 
dressed not to the General of the Brigade, but to 
Colonel Hartranft himself, and it ran thus : " General 
Burnside orders the Fifty -first Pennsylvania Volun- 
teers, Colonel Hartranft, to storm the bridge." Col- 
onel Hartranft formed his plan on the instant. He 
saw that it would be death to move along the edge 
of the narrow stream, every foot of which was open 
to the fire of a hiding enemy, and so he led his men 
through the woods and behind the hills, until they 
faced the bridge. Here he ranged them in order, 
and then dashed down the sloj^e and out into the 
open. In this short rush many brave men fell, and 
many more were killed as they were scaling a fence 
which skirted the roadway leading to the bridge. 
But the bridge was won, and a firm position was 
gained and held on the opposite side, and then the 
whole Xinth Corps passed over in safety, and helped 
to complete the victory for the Xorth. One hundred 
and twenty-five men, in killed and wounded, were 
lost to the regiment that day. The gallant Bell, its 
Lieutenant Colonel, had been among the first to 
cross. He came up to Colonel Hartranft and sug- 
gested that more troops should be brought to the 
position then occupied. The Colonel gave him 
leave to bring them, and he started back towards 
the bridge for that purpose. In a minute afterward.s 
a ball struck him on the temple and he never spoke 
again. Conspicuous as was his service at Antietam, 
and often as it has since been praised, the rank of 
Brigadier General to which it entitled him, and for 



10 

which he was recommended by General Burnside, 
was not conferred upon General Hartranft until Ma}^ 
12th, 1864. Antietam was followed by a change of 
commanders and of the scene of action, and the year 
closed with the unsuccessful expedition beyond 
Fredericksburg. In the three or four days' skirmish- 
ing which took place on the heights. Colonel Hart- 
ranft commanded four regiments, and the brigade to 
which liis own regiment was attached was among the 
last to leave the field. 

In 1863 the theatre of Colonel Hartranft 's opera- 
tions widened. His command was transferred to 
Kentucky, and during the spring and early summer 
it rendered continuous service in checking guerilla 
raids at Winchester, Lancaster, Crab Orchard and 
Stanford. As part of the Ninth Army Corps, it left 
Kentucky in June, and was assigned to the army 
which, under General Grant, captured Vicksburg on 
the 4th of July. Then it advanced with Sherman 
against Jackson, in the State of Mississippi, and on 
the 18th of July it halted in the captured city. Long 
marches soon succeeded, and these following so 
closely upon the active labors in the field, and in a 
sultry climate, prostrated many of the men. In 
tliis campaign Colonel Hartranft had been in charge 
of a whole division, and his protracted and varied 
duties had, under such adverse conditions, proved 
too much even for his vigorous frame. But before 
he had fully recovered from the fever which attacked 
him, stirring events were imminent, and he resumed 
command of the Second Division as soon as it 
arrived at Lenoir. At some distance from that town, 



11. 

and directly in the line of General Burnside's march, 
was Campbell's Station. It was the centre of several 
important highways, and its advantages of position 
were such that a rebel force, judiciously handled, 
could readily have intercepted and captured the 
Union army. Word was brought that Longstreet 
had crossed the Tennessee and was in full march for 
this point. General Burnside quickened his move- 
ments, but his men were advancing on a longer line 
than that which was open to the enemy, and the 
signs of a very serious disaster were ominous. In 
this emergency Colonel Hartranft's division was 
ordered forward with all possible speed, and to the 
Fifty-first Pennsylvania Regiment was ordered the 
task of moving Benjamin's Battery of Heavy Artil- 
lery. The roads were soft with mud, and the Penn- 
sylvanians actually harnessed themselves to the guns, 
and in that way toiled through the night. The early 
morning found them at Campbell's, with the rebel 
troops just coming in sight. The battery did good 
work that day, and Colonel Hartranft had the proud 
satisfaction of holding the foe so completely in check 
until evening that Burnside's army with all its train 
was enabled to pass the point with ease, and under 
cover of the night to reach Knoxville. The value 
of this achievement, which, following so quickly 
upon the fall of Vicksburg, has been dwarfed in the 
history of the war, may be estimated not simply from 
the fact that it was wrought in the face of over- 
whelming odds, but that it saved a large army from 
practical annihilation. 

It was a gala day for the regiment after 1863 had 



12 

closed, and it stood again in the streets of Norristown, 
whither a short respite after its reenhstment had 
permitted it to return and to receive the warm wel- 
come of a grateful community. It was a proud day 
for its commander. His fame as a soldier was 
widening ; he was on the eve of larger events ; he 
was beginning to receive his reward. 

In the history which remains to be told, the 
crowning incident, and that upon which the claim 
of General Hartranft to military leadership may 
safely be rested, was the battle of Fort Stedman. But 
before that event occurred, he was the central figure 
in more than one act of the drama which was now 
moving to its end. The battle of Spottsylvania 
brought him his commission as Brigadier General. 
Yet in his own modest language " Service and honors 
do not always correspond." He was conscious that 
he had borne the brunt of a heavier burden on earlier 
fields; and he could wish, as we do, that this seal of 
approbation had been affixed to the work which he 
did at Campbell Station and Antietam. But it was 
meant to cover them, and no man doubted that it 
had been well earned. 

In the swiftly succeeding pictures which the war 
at this stage threw on the canvas, none was more 
picturesque, if that word will describe a tragedy, than 
the explosion of the mine near Petersburg. That 
work had been projected with infinite skill, and for 
a deadly purpose ; and Mdien the catastrophe came, 
it laid an immense fortification in ruins, and de- 
stroyed its armament and its garrison. For seven- 
teen days and nights General Hartranft lay with his 



13 

brigade at the very mouth of this hell, protecting 
the engineers, and swept by a steady fire of musketry. 
The necessity for unceasing vigilance was so urgent 
that at least one-third of his whole force was con- 
stantly on duty ; and the loss of the brigade amounted 
to 795 out of 1800 men. Among its officers, the 
gallant Schall, the new CJolonel of the Fifty -first 
Pennsylvania, had fallen the preceding month in a 
charge which he led at Cold Harbor. At the very 
moment of the explosion an order came to General 
Hartranft to charge. Massed and protected as the 
rebels then were, it was simply the signal for his own 
destruction ; but he mounted the crater of the mine, 
and was proceeding to lead his men through the 
debris, when the order was countermanded. Then 
came the disaster at the Weldon Railroad, where a 
large part of Crawford's Division was captured, and 
the corps of General Warren was placed in imminent 
peril. General Hartranft was without instructions, 
but he heard the firing and at once took his brigade 
to the scene. In the conflict which ensued, his horse 
was shot under him, and a staff officer was slain at 
his side. But he turned defeat into victory, and 
secured a permanent lodgment on an important line 
of communication. If we compute the arduousness 
of the work which his troops did that year by the 
havoc which they suffered, we must rate it high. 
When the brigade crossed the Rapidan in May, it 
numbered five thousand men, of wdiom three thou- 
sand w^ere fit for duty. In December, although three 
regiments had been added to it in the interim, it 
numbered less than one thousand available men. 



14 

About December 1st, 1864, General Hartranft was 
given the command of the Two Hundredth, Two 
Hundred and Fifth, Two Hundred and Seventh, Two 
Hundred and Eighth, Two Hundred and Ninth and 
Two Hundred and Eleventh Regiments of Pennsyl- 
vania Volunteers, all of them being new and untried 
organizations. They were formed, at his instance, 
into a division numbering 5000 men, and known as 
the Third Division of the Ninth Army Corps. Their 
discipline occupied his attention until the opening 
of the spring campaign. How important that labor 
was, and how splendidly it was compensated, were 
demonstrated in the quickly succeeding battle of 
Fort Stedman, wdiich was fought on March 25th, 
1865.* 

Fort Stedman was built on an eminence known as 
Hare's Hill, about two miles from the centre of the 
town of Petersburg. It formed originally part of 
the rebel defences, and was captured in the general 
assault on the evening of June 16th, 1864, by the 
Second Corps. Colonel Stedman, whose brigade at 
that time held the line at this point, was mortally 
wounded, and in recognition of his services the fort 
was christened with his name. To the left of 
the fort were two small batteries, called Batter}^ 
11, and Battery 12 ; on the left, Batteries 10 and 
9, and three-eighths of a mile distant and on high 

* In the narrative of this engagement I have drawn largely upon 
an admirable work, entitled " Battle of Fort Stedman," by Major 
William H. Hodgkins, of the Thirty -sixth Massachusetts A^oluu- 
teers, a most gallant officer and geutleraau, who served on 'the day 
it was fouglit, upon General Hartranft's staff. 



15 

ground, was Fort Haskell, which last mounted six 
guns and some mortars. Fort Stedman covered 
about three-fourths of an acre, and it was protected 
in front by abattis and other obstructions. Meade 
Station was the nearest point on the military rail- 
road, and was situated one mile in the rear of the 
fort. From Battery 10 to the point of the enemy's 
works immediately opposite, the distance was only 
435 feet ; and one of the Union pickets was stationed 
just 205 feet from his Confederate neighbor. Behind 
the fort and within our lines were two hills, the 
Dunn House and the Friend House hills, and both 
were fortified. 

In the winter of 1864 the Ninth Army Corps occu- 
pied a line, including these fortifications, and ex- 
tending for seven miles, fronting the city of Peters- 
burg. General Hartranft's Division was in reserve, 
and his own headquarters were at the Avery House, 
about a mile south of Fort Haskell. As the Spring 
of 1865 opened. General Grant, who feared that Lee 
might efffect a junction with Johnston, planned a 
general movement to destroy the Danville and South 
Side Railroads, and thereby force Lee to abandon 
his works. Lee, according to the statement of Jeffer- 
son Davis,* observed the movement of the troops 
which were designed to turn his right, and conceived 
the project of a sortie, having for its purpose the 
capture of Fort Stedman and the neighboring works, 
and the threatening of Grant's line of communica- 
tion with his base at City Point. For this service 

* Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. Ii, p. 648. 



IG 

the Stonewall Jackson Corps was selected, and Gen. 
John B. Gordon was named as the Commander. 
Preparations for the movement were made during 
the night of March 24th, 1865, and at 3 o'clock in 
the morning of the 25th the column started. A 
ruse was played which came near bringing fatal 
results to the Union troops. For weeks prior to the 
date in question, large numbers of deserters had 
come within our lines, encouraged, no doubt, by the 
offer, which had been promulgated from our head- 
quarters, of payment for arms which they might bring 
with them. Deserters on this date flocked across in 
such numbers that the officer of the guard began to 
suspect treachery, and sent word to Fort Stedman 
and Battery 11 that things were suspicious. He was 
not a moment too alert : the pickets were overpowered 
by skirmishers who were disguised as deserters, and 
were closely followed up by the storming columns, 
which numbered more than 8000 men. Battery 10, 
which had received no warning, was almost immedi- 
ately captured, and most of the garrison were either 
slain or taken prisoners. From Battery 10 there was 
a wide opening on the right and rear of Fort Sted- 
man, and the enemy entered the sally-port, and 
after a desperate struggle with the now awakened 
garrison, and particularly with one battalion of Four- 
teenth N. Y. Heavy Artillery, secured possession 
and turned the guns upon our troops. The enemy 
then pushed on to Battery 11, which was held by the 
Twenty-ninth Massachusetts. This regiment had 
been aroused, but there was so little firing, that the 
sentinel on the parapet called out that there was no 



17 

attack, and the pickets could be seen standing undis- 
turbed and quiet, alongside of their fires in the 
ravine below. On a sudden Gordon's men appeared 
in the rear of the battery ; a desperate hand-to-hand 
fight succeeded, which was kept up for fifteen minutes, 
but the defenders were overpowered, and the battery- 
fell into the hands of the foe. General McLaughlin, 
of the Third Division, whose headquarters were near 
Fort Haskell, on hearing the tumult, went at once 
to that fort, and finding that the men were on the 
watch, was on his way to Battery 11, when he was 
stopped by an officer, who told him that the fort 
had been taken. He immediately ordered up two 
regiments of Massachusetts men, the Fifty-ninth 
and Twenty-nintli, to charge with fixed bayonets, 
and they recaptured the battery at once. He then 
crossed the parapet into Fort Stedman, when he was, 
of course, surrounded by the enemy, and sent a 
prisoner to General Gordon, and by him taken to 
Petersburg. At this very serious juncture General 
Hartranft made his presence felt. He had been 
aroused from sleep by some movement of the Signal 
Corps on the roof of his headquarters at the Avery 
House. Before he could dress, word was brought 
that the rebels had broken through our lines, and a 
courier, who was despatched in haste to General 
McLaughlin, returned with the report that Fort 
Stedman had been captured. Two regiments were 
encamped at a short distance ; the Two Hundredth 
Pennsylvania near the Dunn House Battery, and the 
Two Hundred and Ninth Pennsylvania at Meade 
Station, both points being within a compass of two 



18 

miles. These regiments, by a previous arrangement 
made in view of the probable difficulty of prompt 
communication between the commanders, owing to 
the length of the Union lines were, in case of an 
attack, to be at the disposal of General Willcox. 
They were accordingly ordered out by that General. 
When General Hartranft reached the headquarters 
of General Willcox he found the two regiments in 
motion, and he assumed their command. He wrote 
afterwards: "While talking with General Willcox, 
our attention was called to the puffs of smoke 
issuing from the wood in the rear, and to the right 
and left of Fort Stedman. It was not yet light 
enough to see the enemy, nor could any sound be 
heard, owing to the direction of the wind, but the 
white puffs indicated musketry firing." 

General Hartranft, without waiting for the rest of 
the troops to come up, ordered the Two Hundred 
and Ninth Pennsylvania down the road, to the left 
of the Friend House, while he himself took the Two 
Hundredth Pennsylvania towards a point in the rear 
of Fort Stedman, which covered the main road lead- 
ing to Meade Station and the Ninth Corps Hospitals, 
and upon which the enemy were moving in force. 
The Two Hundredth Pennsylvania advanced in line 
of battle, driving in the enemy's skirmishers; but 
the enemy were intrenched in some old works, and 
the guns of Fort Stedman were turned against us, 
and the men were forced to retire to shelter in 
another line of old defences, about forty yards in the 
rear and to the right of the fort. In this advance 
the standard bearer was killed, and General Hart- 



19 

ranft himself brought off the colors. " From horse- 
back at this point," said General Hartranft, " the 
enemy's officers could be plainly seen urging their 
men through Fort Stedman, and endeavoring to 
deploy them in rear." General Hartranft attacked 
the second time, and notwithstanding the fact that 
it was a new regiment, and for the first time under 
a galling fire, the Two Hundredth Pennsylvania held 
its ground for more than twenty minutes against 
overwhelming odds, and with a loss of more than 
one hundred men. This delay, thus won, really 
secured for us the victory. On falling back to the 
line of defences which it had left, the regiment 
was joined by the Two Hundred and Ninth Penn- 
sylvania, which had arrived there after considerable 
fighting and loss of life, and the line was now pro- 
longed to the Second Michigan nea,r Battery 9, which 
was in our possession, and a cordon was thus formed 
around the break. This prevented any further ad- 
vance of tlie enemy in that direction, and they had 
no room in wliich to reform their ranks. General 
Hartranft, therefore, turned his attention to other 
parts of the field. The Two Hundred and Eighth 
Pennsylvania Volunteers was stationed so that its 
left was within one hundred yards of Fort Haskell. 
Advancing therefrom it drove the enemy out of the 
ravine in front and captured one hundred prisoners, 
and by the aid of reinforcements was enabled to 
maintain the new line. Fort Haskell was crowded 
with our men, and those who could not get into j^o- 
sition to fire, loaded the muskets for those who stood 
along the parapet, and under the fire thus kept up 



20 

from the line and from the fort, the enemy fell back 
toward Fort Stedman. By this time, seven a.m., the 
Second Brigade had come from its camp, a distance 
of some four miles, and passing through a ravine 
north of headquarters, had reached a spot directly 
in the rear of Fort Stedman, unobserved by the 
enemy. Here they took shelter under an abrupt 
bank, and waited for orders to charge. In the lan- 
guage of General Hartranft our lines now formed 
" two solid wing dams to check the enem}' from 
sweeping the lines in the rear, to the north or south. 
There was still a distance of three hundred yards 
between the left of the Two Hundredth Pennsylvania 
and the right of the Two Hundred and Fifth Penn- 
sylvania, through which ran the road to Meade 
Station, uncovered ; but any further advance of the 
enemy in that direction was impossible;" and he 
adds: "The time and opportunity to make these dis- 
positions were due entirely to the stubborn courage 
of the Two Hundredth Regiment. . . . Although 
they did not know it at the time, and were appar- 
ently awaiting the attack of a superior force, they 
liad captured Fort Stedman in that twenty minutes' 
fight." In a few minutes orders came from (leneral 
Parke to retake the lines held by the foe. The 
signal for the charge was to be the advance of the 
Two Hundred and Eleventh Pennsylvania from the 
hill in the rear, toward Fort Stedman and in the full 
view of the enemy. Just as the arrangements were 
complete, a second order arrived, calling a halt until 
the Fifth Army Corps should reach the ground. 
But General Hartranft feeling sure of success, and 



21 

by no means certain that the rescinding order could 
be sent along his entire line in season, made the 
charge without a moment's delay. It was one of 
those crises which come rarely to any man, in which 
the actor stakes upon his own judgment the chances 
of a splendid success or of an irretrievable ruin. 
The spirit of their leader animated the men, and 
their onset that day is one of the most striking epi- 
sodes of the war. The Two Hundred and Eleventh 
Pennsylvania led the charge. When its six hundred 
muskets, in waving lines of light, flashed into view, 
a cheer rang out from the men who were crowded in 
the ravine and another cheer answered from right 
and left ; and in less than the time in which the 
event could be recorded, Fort Stedman and the bat- 
teries and the intervening line, were in Northern 
hands. Our casualties were 75 killed, 419 wounded 
and 523 missing; and the loss of the enemy, includ- 
ing prisoners, was at least 3000. Said a rebel officer 
to Captain Sholler, who bore a flag of truce to bur}' 
our dead: "When you were about to make your 
final charge, our generals were holding a council of 
war ; but it was the shortest council of war you ever 
saw; for when they beheld such magnificent lines 
advancing they adjourned by each taking to his 
heels without ceremony." Fifteen days after this, 
on Sunday, April 9th, 1865, the Army of Northern 
Virginia surrendered, and the war ended.. 

With the rank of Major General, which was con- 
ferred upon him three daj's after the battle, General 
Hartranft in the last two weeks of tlie rebellion was 
not idle. His division was in the final attack on 



22 

Petersburg, and carried the works with a loss of one 
tliousand men in killed and wounded. Its skir- 
mishers were the first troops which entered the city, 
and the Division itself pursued Lee as far as Notta- 
way Court House. It was the twenty -fourth pitched 
battle in which General Hartranft was an active 
participant ; and he provoked then, as he had done 
before, the single criticism that he voluntarily sub- 
jected himself to perils which in prudence he ought 
to have shunned. 

Concerning Fort Stedman this comment remains 
to be added. The number of battles during the 
civil war was 2261.* The rank which the action at 
Fort Stedman holds in this list, as gauged by its 
casualties on our side, is 77. If calculated upon the 
basis of the casualties suffered by the rebels, its place 
would be 44. t In the "History of the Thirty -sixth 
Massachusetts Volunteers," the author says: "He 
(General Hartranft) gained the first real success in 
the trenches at Petersburg, and won for himself the 
double star of a Major General."! It is an interest- 
ing fact, and a worthy one with which to close this 
recital, that the charge which won the day at Sted- 
man, was witnessed by President Lincoln. Major 
Hodgkins describes the scene as follows : " He had 
passed the previous night at City l\)int with ({enerals 



* Phisterer's StatisUcal Eecord, Vol. xiii, St-ribner's " Cam- 
paigus of the Civil War," p. 218. 

t "Battle ol" Fort Stedman," by Major Hodgkins, p. 46, note. 

t History of Tliirty-sixth Massachusetts Volunteers. Boston, 
p. 94. 



23 

Grant and Meade, and a review had been arranged 
in honor of his visit to the army. The attack of the 
enemy at Stedmftn, and the subsequent advance of 
the Union lines on the left, rendered a change of 
programme necessary. While intently watching the 
surging charge of Hartranft's line, he is reported to 
have said, ' This is better tlian a review.' Later in 
the day, however, he was honored with a review. 
The Fifth Corps had been removed from its camp 
and sent over to the right, to be available for the 
support of the Ninth. Its services not being required, 
it was returning, and was halted for review by the 
President. That being over, it was liurried to the 
left, where General Wright was just then receiving 
a counter-attack from the enemy. ' Thus at nearly 
the same time, our lines presented the curious picture 
of a battle won and a truce prevailing on the right, 
a review in rear of the centre, and a severe engage- 
ment at the left.' " * 

The narrative of these deeds serves to illustrate 
one side of the character of General Hartranft, and 
it is the side upon whicli the public gaze has been 
chiefly fixed, and the side by which he has been 
judged. It is almost superfluous to say that it is 
worthy of men's admiration and has stood the 
challenge of military criticism. One fact is sufiicient 
to demonstrate this. Without previous soldierly 
training, and without political influence, his native 
resources won for him, in less tlian four years, the 
high distinction of a Major General in an army of 

* " Battle of- Fort Stedman," p. 47. 



24 

veterans. A competent military authority declared 
that he was equal to the command of an army 
corps. This was in effect saying that he could have 
borne the responsibilities which were assigned b}^ 
Napoleon to marshals like Ney and Murat. He pos- 
sessed in full measure the two qualities which, if 
genius can be analyzed, make up military genius, — 
prudence and celerity. By universal consent, the 
greatest of modern commanders. Napoleon, is the 
standing embodiment of the latter attribute. It was 
the almost miraculous swiftness of his movements, 
quite as much as his tactical dispositions, which be- 
wildered and confounded his foes ; and men forgot 
in this outward exhibition of power, the laborious 
processes which preceded it and through whose 
medium it was wrought. Yet General Napier, the 
soldier-historian, declared of Napoleon, that " not all 
his experience, his power, his fortune, nor the con- 
tempt wliich he felt for the prowess of his adversaries, 
could induce him to relax in his precautions; every 
chance was considered and every measure calculated 
with as much care and circumspection, as if the 
most redoubtable enemy was opposed to him. The 
conqueror of Europe was as fearful of making false 
movements before an army of peasants, as if Fred- 
erick the Great had been in his front." So with 
General Hartranft, the possession of qualities which 
are so seldom united in one man that they have 
come to be regarded as antagonistic, made him self- 
poised, and inspired him with a confidence which 
was in itself a harbinger of success. This intense 
self-faith was the more remarkable, because it was 



25 

never dissociated from a modesty which instinct- 
ively shrank from all public demonstrations. Yet 
it impelled him to acts Avhich in a meaner spirit 
would have seemed like arrogance. Twice, on noted 
occasions and in great emergencies, he practically 
disregarded orders. But he was conscious of the 
trust which had been committed to him, and of his 
ability to meet its requirements; and in the light of 
that consciousness, a high sense of duty told him to 
lean u})on his own resources, and to show the noblest 
obedience to the unwritten command by disobcAdng 
tlie letter of the written order. He acted wisely; 
and hundreds of brave lives saved, and a victory 
snatched from defeat, were the results of his wisdom. 
He was an aljsolute stranger to fear, and it was said 
of him, in the presence of his disbanded veterans, 
when the war had closed, that "his men knew that 
he never ordered them to go where he did not lead." 
I am discouraged in this i)oor attempt to do some 
justice to his memory, when I reflect that the genius 
of a soldier can only be properly characterized and 
measured by a soldier. I can simply indicate its 
rank, by outlining the qualities of its possessor, and 
guess at the infinite possibilities of achievement to 
which it was adequate by rehearsing the deeds which 
it accomplished in a comparatively narrow field of 
endeavor. For we all know what chequered influ- 
ences niay make or may mar the prospects of the 
aspirant for military fame. We know, at least, Avith 
how potent a sway political power has opened up a 
[)athway for the soldiers of fortune. What, without 
that interest, would have been the fate of Marlbo- 



26 

rough or even of Wellington ? Xo breeze of political 
favor wafted this hero into fame. He won his way 
at every step by his sword. There is one test, how- 
ever, by which even a civilian may judge him: he 
was never wanting in the requirements of any post 
which was assigned to him. By what higlier or 
better test can we gauge any human capacity? 
When Napoleon planted his guns on the porches of 
the Church of St. Roch, and put down the insurrec- 
tion at Paris, he displayed the same qualities which 
afterwards won for him the battle of Marengo. To 
the seer of military science, he was just as great a 
warrior when he was an unknown lieutenant as 
when he was the conqueror of Europe. I do not 
know what of military greatness the same practiced 
eye would have discerned in General Ilartranft, but 
this I know, that a larger share of those exigencies 
than usually falls to tlie lot of one man, which try 
the temper, test the endurance and demand the 
highest skill, while they bring no corresponding re- 
nown, were, by a coincidence which would be strange, 
if it had not resulted from his acknowledged fitness 
for a crisis, encountered by General Hartranft. When 
fortune failed us, he covered the retreat ; when an 
overwhelming foe was to be checked, he led the for- 
lorn hope. Lord Bacon once wrote : " Honorable 
retreats are no wise inferior to brave charges, as hav- 
ing less of fortune, more of discipline, and as much 
of valor;" and Sir .John Moore has been renowned 
in song and story for liis retreat u})on Corunna. 
General Hartranft deserves to be tried by the same 
standard and to be accorded the same honor. The 



27 

man who crossed the bridge at Antietam in 18G3 
would have carried the bridge of Coa in 1810; the 
man who stood on the crater of the mine at Peters- 
burg, or who mustered his men at early dawn at 
Fort Stedman, or who saved the Union forces at 
Weldon, would have led, we may be sure, a con- 
quering division at Austerlitz or Wagram. 

Perhaps I am belittling the record of General 
Hartranft's achievements by suggesting that they 
were wrought on a field comparatively narrow. The 
suggestion is true, only because the war of which 
those deeds were part was on a scale of huge dimen- 
sions. Yet, when we separate the actions in which 
he took part from the mass, we shall find that some 
of them had all the elements of historic interest. 
Take the battle of Fort Stedman as an instance. 
It was a night attack by the enemy in full force, 
upon a point which menaced the safety of our entire 
line ; it involved the capture of a fort which we had 
deemed secure ; it was the last and most desperate 
attempt of the Confederate Army under its most 
skillful leaders. It was followed in nine days by the 
capture of Richmond, and six days thereafter by the 
surrender of Lee at Appomattox. In replying to 
the insinuation that this action was simply an 
episode, a gallant officer from Massachusetts has 
said : " Whatever may be the verdict of history upon 
this point, the fact remains that, considering the 
numbers of the troops that took part in it, it was 
one of the most important engagements of the late 
war, and fully attained to the dignity of a battle. 
Had it occurred during any other campaign or at 



28 

any other period, or as an isolated event in the long 
siege of Petersburg, it would have acquired promi- 
nence in the annals of the war. It was the last 
desperate thrust of the Army of Northern ^^irginia 
before the agonies of its dissolution ; and as a fair 
offset to the disaster which befell the Ninth Army 
Corps at the battle of the Mine in the same locality 
eight months previous, it is worthy of extended 
description, and a more prominent position in 
history than it has yet attained." And he adds 
this noble tribute to the services rendered that day 
by General Hartranft. " In this action," he writes, 
" he exhibited upon the dark background of disaster, 
the brilliant qualities he had previously displayed 
on many a bloody field. He was equal to the great 
emergency, and manifested not only the military 
skill requisite to the command of a large division, 
but the nerve to fight a single regiment and lead it 
into the hottest fire. But for his opportune arrival 
in front of the Dunn House Battery with the Two 
Hundredth Regiment, just in season to check the 
advance of the enemy's line, it is impossible to state 
what might have been the result. His fierce attack 
upon the head of the enemy's column prevented its 
deployment, and gave time for the regiments on the 
right and left to take strong positions. Had the 
enemy succeeded in gaining the high ground in 
rear of our main lines, the sequel of that morning's 
assault would have been far different. That this 
opinion was shared by his commanders may be 
judged from their subsequent action. Immediately 
after the battle. General Parke recommended that 



29 

General Hartranft be "bre vetted ]Major General for 
ability and gallantry displayed that day. General 
Meade replied that he had already forwarded a 
similar recommendation, .and that his request for 
this special honor had been anticipated by General 
Grant and the Secretary of War. He received at 
once the reward so nobly won, and the act of justice 
was applauded by the entire army." His highest 
praise as a soldier remains to be spoken. " War," 
it has been said, " is the condition of this world. 
From man to the smallest insect, all are at strife ; 
and the glory of arms which cannot be obtained 
without the exercise of honor, fortitude, courage, 
obedience, modesty and temperance, excites the brave 
man's patriotism and is a chastening corrective for 
the rich man's pride." We ma}^ not endorse the pro- 
position that war is a thing of necessity, but we can- 
not withhold our admiration of tlie qualities which 
are essential to its conduct. In a larger measure 
than most men General Hartranft possessed ever}^ 
one of those attributes, and the gift was unalloyed 
by the vulgar impulse of personal ambition. If he 
aspired to military renown, it was only because that 
renown would signalize his efforts in behalf of a 
government whose overthrow was sought through 
an unrighteous treason ; and when the traitors were 
foiled, he refused the offer of promotion which the 
government held out to him, and retired to civil 
life. 

His record as a soldier also bears witness to a 
service wliich he rendered primarily to his own 
State, but whose beneficent results are destined to be 



30 

felt over the Union. He revivified, if indeed he 
may not be said to have originated, the National 
Guard of Pennsylvania. Taught in the terrible 
school of the rebellion, he saw the necessity for such 
an organization; and he brought to the enterprise 
all the resources of his judgment and all the influ- 
ence which he could wield as an officer of the army 
and as the Chief Executive of the Commonwealth. 
To give to the State a military force which should 
have the discipline and solidity of a standing army, 
without any of the evils which usually attend such 
a body of troops, was the darling project of his later 
years ; and it was a project worthy of his endeavors. 
Very few citizens of our State have any just concep- 
tion of the debt of gratitude which they owe to 
General Hartranft in this regard. I cannot put that 
obligation in stronger or more stirring language 
than was done by the eloquent divine who officiated 
at his grave. In the course of his eulogy upon the 
illustrious deceased, he said: "Nothing in his, career 
was more fruitful of good to the Commonwealth than 
his services to its National Guard. When his imme- 
diate predecessor appointed him Major General of 
our military police, that body was a chain of discon- 
nected links. Each link contained good material, 
but as a whole it was a rope of sand. To this dis- 
organized, or rather unorganized, system General 
Hartranft directed his soldierly ability, and to-day, 
under his leadership, the National Guard of Penn- 
sylvania is entitled to rank in every essential respect 
with the army of the nation. Not only did he thus 
influence our own State organization, but through 



31 

the example of Pennsylvania other States were led 
to reorganize their militia and place their citizen 
soldiers upon a worthy footing. Thus, from the 
quiet, earnest, persistent intelligence of General 
Hartranft there issued an influence which has helped 
to make our country strong for defence against the 
hour of possible trial."* Rightly to estimate the ex- 
tent of that service and of its corresponding merit, it 
is necessary to remember that at the time of the riots 
of 1877, in which many lives and millions in value 
of property were destroyed, the State militia did not 
number more than 5000 men, if, in fact, it approached 
that figure. It was officered perhaps better than 
Falstaff's brigade, because that consisted chiefly of 
ensigns, corporals and lieutenants, while the Penn- 
sylvania militia boasted at least twenty brigadier 
generals and several major generals, each with the 
usual staff accompaniments. The entire command 
of some of these generals, I am told, amounted to 
200 men. With this generous supply of ornaments 
at its head, it is no matter for surprise that the rank 
and file of sucli an organization should regard the 
main purpose of its being as one of display ; and so 
long as this tradition existed, all thought of soldierly 
discipline was impossible. To bring order out of 
this chaos, and to mould into a compact and yet 
mobile body these incongruous materials, was a task 
which required both patience and genius. Super- 
fluous officers were to be weeded out ; a rigid system 



* Rev. Henry C. McCook, d.d., in his funeral sermon in the 
Court House at Norristowu. 



32 

of discipline was to be introduced ; and above all a 
new and hardier element was to be pressed into the 
service. General Hartranft brought to the self-im- 
posed duty an enthusiasm of which only those who 
knew him well could have believed him capable. 
Fortunately for him and for the commonwealth, 
hundreds of veterans, inured to all the hardships 
and practiced in all the requirements of actual war- 
fare, answered his summons and enrolled themselves 
under his leadership. The recreated body was no 
holiday soldiery. It was subjected to a discipline 
almost as severe as that of the field ; it had its camp 
life ; the old trappings were cast aside and the ser- 
vice uniform of the regular army was adopted ; and 
the men were perfected in those details which were 
required to be known to enable them to be trans- 
ported at a moment's notice. And what is the result? 
In the State of Pennsylvania a body of troops, 8000 
strong, fully equipped and ready for instant service, 
can be concentrated at any point within a period of 
twenty-one hours. All that the most adverse criti- 
cism has been able to say of this organization is that 
a few single regiments in New York, Connecticut 
and Massachusetts may be superior in material and 
parade drill to any single regiment in Pennsylvania ; 
but I have it on good military authority that in the 
essential matters of compactness and mobility and 
discipline as one body, the National Guard of our 
State is not excelled, even if it is equalled, by the 
regular arm3^ In writing upon this subject, an 
officer who was upon the staff of General Hartranft,* 

* Lt. Col. John Houston Merrill. 



33 

remarks that "in the various reports and criticisms 
by regular officers sent by the United States Govern- 
ment each year to inspect our Guard, the fact has 
several times been referred to, that, had there existed 
throughout the Xorth, at the breaking out of the re- 
bellion, a few such volunteer organizations as Penn- 
sylvania possesses, we would have been saved many 
thousands of lives and millions of property, and 
much of the other disastrous effects of the late war." 
To the argument that the occasion for its services is 
too remote to justify the expenditure of time and 
money which it demands, the reply may be made 
that the quarter of a century which has elapsed since 
the close of the rebellion, is the longest period in our 
history as a nation during which peace has prevailed. 
In what has been said, we have looked only upon 
that side of this man's character in respect of which it 
may be said the possessor belonged to the whole coun- 
try. Even in that aspect and in the scanty outline 
which I have been able to present, that character and 
the life-history of which it was part, are so rounded 
and complete that nothing would seem to be needed 
to fill the measure of any ordinary' ambition. If this 
were all, and if he had done no more. General Hart- 
ranft would be entitled to the fame which he won as 
a military hero. It was not simply what he did, as 
the absolute certainty that he could do far more, if 
the occasion should arise, which gave him this proud 
preeminence. Few men, however gifted, would care 
to be subjected to a severer test, and of few men 
would it be just to demand that, outside of their 
chosen calling, they should exhibit marks of great- 



34 

ness in another and wholly different field. The Duke 
of Wellington provoked that test, and was adjudged to 
have failed as a statesman. It was not so with Gen- 
eral Hartranft. Unless I greatly err, the service 
which he rendered to his State as her chief civil 
officer was quite as valuable and enduring as the 
service which he gave to the nation in the field. 
Here was a new sphere, which called into play a 
wholly different set of faculties from those which 
had formerly been exercised. Yet here, as in the 
plane which he had quitted, there was that in the 
mental and moral nature of the man which inspired 
universal confidence, because it enabled him to deal 
intelligently with every question of state, and because 
it evinced the presence of a reserve power which no 
contingency could exhaust. When the riots which dis- 
graced the commonwealth broke out he was unfortu- 
nately absent ; but at the moment of his return the 
insurgents quailed, and quiet was restored. Men of all 
parties confessed that in him, as its Chief Ex'ecutive, 
the State had a ruler whose courage equaled his 
discretion, and whose judgment and conscience con- 
trolled every official act. In the conduct of his 
high office his methods were faultless. He came to 
the discharge of its functions with an accurate knowl- 
edge of the finances of the State and of its needs, 
which he had gained during his incumbency of a 
minor position ; and the public records show that he 
turned that knowledge to good account, in advising 
the course of legislation. Nothing escaped his notice, 
and no suitor was too humble for his attention. At 
one of the very few times I saw him in Harrisburg, 



35 

he showed me the copy of a bill which had passed 
the Legislature and awaited his action. It was a 
law making some changes, of a purel}' technical 
character, in proceedings before road juries, and it 
could hardly be said to have been a matter of great 
public concern. Yet the memoranda and questions 
which he had placed upon the margin showed that 
he had studied its every provision with care. 

There is only one standard by which to gauge the 
supreme claim to rulership, and it has been furnished 
by the born rulers of men. In a free people and 
under a government of the people, every man who 
proposes to become a bearer of authority, should 
be tried by that standard, and by no lower one. Its 
high requirements cannot be squeezed within the 
petty limits of any Civil Service rules, however elab- 
orate ; they are not founded upon the learning of the 
schools ; they will not bend to any doctrine of politi- 
cal convenience. That standard asks in the candi- 
date for its honors, not book knowledge, but the 
rarest of all wisdom, the knowledge of himself and 
of men ; it asks for a conscience and for enthusiasm ; 
it would know whether he can legislate for a century 
hence, while he does not overlook the needs of to-day. 
Once in a century, perhaps, some God-made man 
steps out from the ranks, challenges that standard, 
and is handed the sceptre. I can name two such 
men — Oliver Cromwell, of England, and Abraham 
Lincoln, of America — but I must pause long before 
I can name a third. Measured by the criterion 
which these lives afford, how swiftly and ignomini- 
ously must many modern leaders of the multitude 



36 

pass into oblivion ; machine-made legislators who 
construct laws by the rule and square of expediency, 
and machine-made judges who expound those laws 
by ill-fitting precedents; men, all of them, who can 
sit silent and moveless while moral and social revolu- 
tions are at work around them, but whose being is 
stirred to its innermost depths if a word is dropped 
out of the preamble to a statute, or if a seal is omitted 
from a deed. General Hartranft belonged to no 
such species of human garrulinse, or, rather, to no 
such order of moral paralytics. He did not, like 
Cromwell, direct a revolution under which a kingly 
dynasty went down ; he did not, like Lincoln, free 
4,000,000 slaves in a day ; but he would have done 
either act if the time and the place had required it. 
Before he was seated in the Executive chair, his 
adversaries predicted that he would select an 
unworthy Cabinet ; when the appointments were 
made, even his foes confessed that they were wise 
ones. His first veto struck nearly 100 bills' from the 
calendar, and he anticipated by that veto the cardi- 
nal principle of the New Constitution which followed, 
prohibiting all manner of special legislation. By 
iniquitous Acts of Revival, which were renewed 
year by year, charters which would otherwise have 
expired for non-payment of the enrollment tax, were 
continued in being for the sole purposes of specula- 
tion, and it is stated that in sixteen years the char- 
ters so vivified amounted to 1622. The Governor 
vetoed 82 of these bills in one day, and put a stop to 
the barter. He was compelled to a sterner exercise 
of his prerogative. The town of Somerset was 



37 

nearly destroyed in 1872 by fire, and tlie Legislature 
promptly passed a bill appropriating $75,000 of the 
public moneys for the relief of the impoverished 
citizens. In a message which showed how warmly 
he sympathized in their misfortune, he vetoed that 
measure on the ground that the policy of the State 
had never permitted individual losses to be com- 
pensated by drafts on the State treasur3^ Soon 
afterwards a great railroad corporation, which more 
fully perhaps than any other single agency had 
developed the resources and added to the wealth of 
the Commonwealth, applied for leave to increase its 
capital stock at its own discretion. The Legislature 
enacted that such authority should be given, but the 
Governor returned the bill without his signature. 
In the riots of 1874 at Susquehanna Depot, in which 
the works of the Erie Railroad Company suffered at 
the hands of its employes, the Governor was appealed 
to by the Sheriff for 1500 soldiers. Many citizens, 
including the Chief Burgess, however, protested 
against military intervention, but the Governor sent 
the troops without delay. His reply to the protestants 
contained this sentence : " Whenever the laws of the 
Commonwealth shall provide that the employes of 
a railroad company may suspend all traffic upon it 
until their wages are paid, I will acquiesce ; but I 
cannot do so while the law refuses to contemplate 
any such remedy. My duty is not to make the laws 
or to criticise them, but to execute them ; and that 
duty I must discharge." So, in the later riots at 
Pittsburgh and elsewhere, which he quelled by calling 
out the whole military force of the State, and in 



38 

which he even asked aid of the Federal government, 
the language of his message embodied a meaning 
which may be profitably pondered by workmen and 
capitalists alike: "The attitude of the people," he 
wrote, " towards these two forces during the great 
strike has also a deep significance. In the general 
sympathy for the strikers, dulled only by their un- 
lawful acts, the workmen have assurance that in all 
right and lawful efforts to better their condition, 
they will have the aid of nearly all classes of their 
fellow citizens. And in the prejudices against cor- 
porations, those who control them may realize that . 
the possession of great wealth and the control of 
great enterprises impose obligations to the public 
which they cannot afford to ignore." 

I do not propose to weary you by going into an 
elaborate summary of his administration of the civil 
power of the Commonweath. But justice to his 
record as a statesman requires some proof that it 
was not on the negative side of his administration 
that General Hartranft alone displayed the qualities 
which fitted him for rulership. He had in a large 
degree the creative faculty which enabled him to 
map out new methods of advanced legislation, as 
well as the conservative force which held him to 
methods which experience had shown to be safe 
ones. He appreciated the needs and the aspirations 
of a progressive community. In the light of after- 
events, his annual messages to the Legislature teem 
with suggestions of work to be done in fields which 
were then untrodden, which now seem to be almost 
prophetic. 



39 

He pointed out, as they never had been by his 
predecessors, the defects in the public school system. 
He did not spare the subject of the incompetency, as 
a class, of the teachers ; nor the delinquency of the 
taxpayers, who were mainly responsible for that 
incompetency, by refusing proper compensation for 
the members of that profession. He advocated schools 
of industrial art and of seamanship as indispensable 
adjuncts to existing methods of instruction ; and he 
cited statistics to indicate the thousands of children 
who, from the poverty or neglect of their natural 
protectors, were barred out from all advantages or 
opportunities of education. Under these heads, the 
arguments which he drew, in most perspicuous lan- 
guage, from the vast resources of the Commonwealth, 
calling, as their development does, for the highest 
skill, and from the prisons whose tables show how 
crime is fostered by ignorance and idleness, make up 
in themselves a philosophical treatise which would 
stand the test of the best criticism of our day. It is an 
evidence of their truth that in more than one direc- 
tion they have begun to be successfully acted on. 
One branch of the school system, an outgrowth of 
the war, was the Soldiers' Orphans Schools, the 
privileges of which ceased when the pupil reached 
the age of 16 years. Governor Plartranft recom- 
mended the extension of the term, the addition of 
such studies, and the learning of such trades, as 
would tend to render the beneficiaries self-supporting. 

Regarding insurance, an enterprise in which enor- 
mous sums were yearly being paid, in the shape of 
premiums, by the citizens, it is surprising that prior 



40 

to General Hartranft's administration no adequate 
safeguard had been provided by State legislation. 
At his instance an Insurance Department was cre- 
ated, with salutary supervisory powers, and stringent 
regulations were enacted, under which the frauds 
which had theretofore been perpetrated under the 
guise of capital almost wholly fictitious, were scarcely 
possible. The Insane Asylums at Norristown and 
Warren resulted from his recommendation ; he recom- 
mended provisions which were afterwards embodied 
in the Constitution of 1873, imposing limitations 
upon the powers of State Banks and Savings and 
Trust Companies. In his Message of 1874 he was 
compelled to advert to the question of employing 
military force in suppressing civil disorders. Very 
emphatically he repudiated the notion that the 
National Guard should constitute a State police force ; 
and he affirmed, on the contrary, that where, through 
the neglect or timidity of civil authorities, the services 
of troops were necessary, the expenses of their em- 
ployment should be borne by the county in which 
the delinquency occurred. During his incumbency 
of the Executive office of the State, the New Consti- 
tution came into being, and inaugurated a new era 
in the history of the Commonwealth. And in his 
second gubernatorial term the Centennial achieved 
its grand success. He was renominated by acclama- 
tion, on May 26th, 1875, at Lancaster ; the only 
instance on record of a renomination of that charac- 
ter. 

This unanimity of sentiment was not due to the 
compliant character of the man, nor to the concur- 



41 

rence of favoring circumstances. The man himself 
was too self-poised to be compliant, in the sense of 
being weak ; and the course of public events was 
antagonistic to harmony of action. Men were divided 
as to the expediency of the changes which were in- 
evitable if the New Constitution should be adopted ; 
and various interests, corporate and individual, had 
suffered severely in their aspirations by executive 
vetoes. The reasons for his supremacy lay on the 
surface. His administration of affairs had exhibited 
the exercise of an unrivalled common sense, and 
judgment both of men and measures. This common 
sense displayed itself to every observer, even in the 
method which he pursued in the details of the public 
business. The applicant for his attention was re- 
ceived without the slightest ostentation ; was heard 
with the most respectful attention, and was answered 
with prompt decision, if the matter permitted it, and 
if delay was required, its limits were specified. His 
manner was perfect : there was a sedate dignity, 
which was yet so absolutely unassuming, that the 
humblest visitor was j:)ut immediately at ease in his 
presence. But beneath this quiet exterior there was 
a religious sense of duty, which could rise into stern 
indignation in the presence of aught that savored of 
dishonesty or treachery. This is not the time, nor 
is this the occasion, to open what ought to be a 
sealed book. It is enough to say that he was con- 
fronted with temptations subtl}^ contrived and 
wrapped up in a triple covering of respectability and 
expedience ; temptations which held out the lure of 
preferment as well as of fortune, and which involved 



42 

to the mind of the ordinary casuist no violation of 
official trust; but his instinct of honor and justice 
kept him safe from contagion.* 

And now I ask what is wanting in the portrait 
upon which we have been looking, to bring it up to 
the ideal standard of heroism. By a strange law of 
our being, one of the noblest attributes of the soul 
which shone beneath it, dimmed perhaps its lustre 
in the eyes of the multitude, for General Hartranft 
was doubly great because he shunned greatness. 
Other men, with his force, but of coarser fibre, would 
have climbed the heights of ambition, to their frozen 
summits ; he was content to live in the sunshine of 
the lower lands. Perhaps it was well for him that 
he was content. He had done a double work and 
had won a dual fame, and he deserved to rest. No 
glittering insignia could add to his greatness, and no 
popular plaudits could deepen the love which men 
bore him. How unchanged he seemed through all 
the years. Youth still looked out of his' eyes, the 
old smile was on the lips, the voice was as low and 



* General Hartranft appreciated humor. He related with great 
glee, an episode which occurred during his colonelcy of the Fifty- 
first Pennsylvania. General Ferrero, the brigade commander, had 
no perception of locality, and when he undertook to guide them, 
his men invariably lost their way. General Hartranft at one time 
was ordered to follow him, and knowing his chief's infirmity, he 
sent an aid to discover his whereabouts. The officer returned ex- 
hausted after a search of some hours, and reported that General 
Ferrero was five miles on a road to the left, when he should have 
been that far on a road to the right. ' ' And, ' ' said General Hart- 
ranft, ' ' he told me that the worst march since the days of King 
Pharaoh was the march that day of General Ferrfero. " 



43 

earnest as ever, and the ample locks were unthinned. 
You forgot what the man had done in what he was. 
Home one who saw him on that April morning in 
1861, has told me that just before he started from 
the old homestead, and when the men who made up 
his first command were forming in ranks on the 
street, he appeared in citizen's dress. He was laugh- 
ingly implored by his younger friends to don his 
uniform, and finally yielding to their entreaties, he 
went back, and opened the trunk where he had care- 
fully packed it, and came out again resplendent but 
diffident. I w^onder whether on that day his vision 
went beyond the limits of the little town and into 
the new world which was about to open before him. 
Across its vista and above the glare of battle, was 
there no picture of a saved country and a grateful 
people, and of a name high in the starry dome? 
Talk to me of the wonder-land of fiction! What 
novelist in his dreams would have foreshadowed, 
what philosopher in his retreat would have foreseen, 
the mighty panorama which lay within the iiarrow 
compass of the four years that were to come. Whole 
centuries of the past counted as nothing against that 
interval. Yet short as it was, it was long enough 
for Truth to rise from the earth where she had lain, 
and for Justice to erase from the charter of our rights 
its one foul blot. No truer words were ever written 
or uttered than these of Carlyle: "The ages differ 
greatly, even infinitely, from one another. Consid- 
erable tracts of ages there have l)een, by far the 
majority indeed, wherein the men, unfortunate 
mortals, were a set of mimetic creatures rather than 



44 

men ; without heart-insight as to this universe, and 
its heights and its abysses; without conviction or 
belief of their own. . . . The memory of such ages 
fades away forever out of the minds of all men. 
What melodious, loving heart will search into their 
records, will sing of them, or celebrate them ?" One 
such age ended on the day which ushered in the 
year 1863 and the Proclamation of Freedom. Let 
us hope that it has been followed by a better and 
nobler one. It was his glory whose life we now com- 
memorate, that he helped to make the history of 
that middle time. He little knew — how could he? — 
when his feet first turned southward, that his sword 
was to be one of those which were to cut the knot 
that philosopher and statesman and philanthropist 
had tried in vain to loosen, and that he was to be 
one of the leaders in a conflict on which a w^orld was 
to look, and over which future generations would 
rejoice. And here I leave him wdth you. His life, 
his death, have sealed with a new and holier impress 
our common allegiance to a common country. 
Above all, our dead hero has added a new lustre to 
the State of Pennsylvania. Beside his tomb, let us 
renew our vows to the grand old Commonwealth 
whose children we are, and that owned him as her 
son; the parent that stirred his young manhood 
with the story of Braddock's Field and Valley Forge ; 
that when danger threatened, gave him to the armies 
of the Union, and when he came back crowaied with 
the garlands of victory, looked proudly on him ; and 
then, when his work was done, took him tenderly to 
her bosom. 



'ENNSYLVANIA CLUB LECTURES, 



COURSE OF 1889-90. 



AN ADDRESS 



The Life and Services of 
John R Hartranft. 



Hon. William N. Ashman. 



PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL EDUCATION. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

THE PENNSYLVANIA CLUB, 

1423 Walnut Street. 

1890. 



